Harley’s Street Glide

Buzzing this past week, a new touring bike, Ferrari’s next supercar, Porsche’s new baby SUV and BMW’s pimped out Z4 roadster

Harley-Davidson Street Glide
Harley is celebrating its 110th year, and has announced that the next bike headed India-ward is the Street Glide touring bike. Everything from its 1.6-litre engine twin-cylinder V-twin and state-of-the-art infotainment system to its Rs 29 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi) price tag rivals that of a mid-level luxury sedan. Only with this ride, there’s space for only you. Mid-life crisis be damned; that’s definitely a good thing.

Ferrari supercar images leaked
The quirkily named Ferrari La Ferrari unveiled earlier this year was a retake on the iconic Ferrari Enzo. It was a brutish hypercar: a 6.3-liter V12 producing a behemoth 963 hp. It looked hardcore too with massive air scoops and sharp edges rather than the more traditional rounded curves. But rumour has it that Ferrari’s next is a rejig on the more genial, elegant and super-stylish hardtop California convertible. Images leaked online earlier this week confirm this with the styling getting much more aggressive than the current generation California. Expect to see it debut in the first quarter of 2014.

Porsche Macan SUV
The Cayenne SUV always elicited extreme reactions: people either hated it, or loved it, and the fence sitters were politely asked to leave the party. Porsche has just teased with its Macan SUV; a smaller sibling to the Cayenne. Reportedly, this beast will feature two variants – a 3-litre V6 and a 3.6-litre twin turbo. Porsche’s website says that it will officially be unveiled 30 days from now. Let’s collectively mark our calendars.

BMW Z4 roadster
The problem with most updates to the Z-series is that it’s often been little more than a nip-and-tuck job, without anything ever being done to spice up that meaty engine. Gentlemen, the new BMW Z4, expected to arrive here next month, is out to prove that premise resoundingly wrong. In fact, look at it hard enough and you’ll still be hard pressed to notice the visual difference between it and the existing model. Pop the hood and you’ll see a new sDrive35i beating at the core, with that “s” being for the extra 33 hp (compared to the previous generation) that has been extracted from the 2.9-litre six-cylinder twin turbo engine. On paper, the seven-speed dual clutch offering promises to rival the 0-100kph speeds of a Boxster S. We’re sold.